NABA Names Committee

[Chris J. Durden]

At 11:11  30/03/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Chris Durden wrote:
>
>>Will these names appear in the Federal Register to become enshrined in law?
>
>Do not downplay this. When the law is written such that a name change in a
>protected species *invalidates* its protected status, one has to take name
>changes seriously. Until we get laws that protect habitat instead of taxa,
>this will always be an issue.
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Regulatory agencies that publish in the Federal Register do not seem to
have heard of scientific names or are perhaps allergic to foreign languages.
- - - - -(Chris)
>
>>What names are to be used in other North American countries such as Canada,
>>Costa Rica, Jamaica or Haiti?
>
>The scientific names, of course.
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The butterfly-birders do not seem to want to use these. So we are stuck
with unscientific usage by a large community that has financial clout.
- - - - -(Chris)
>
>>Should these other communities not be represented on an official names
>>committee?
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A common names committee, tied to scientific names, not a committee on
scientific names.
- - - - -(Chris)
>
>They are. A committee that rules on whether a given new scientific name is
>appropriate or not serves the international community.
- - - - -
Is there an international committee that can do this or are you referring
to the bi-national Opler/Lafontaine committee?
The ICZN does not rule on the standardization of names, only on their
appropriate documentation and adherence to the rules of zoological
nomenclature.
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>
>>  Let's just produce a lexicon and thesaurus of names that have been used,
>>with full disclosure of sources.
>
>There are such things. They're called catalogs and checklists. 
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Yes but the ones available for butterflies are incomplete, outdated and the
good ones ignore listing common names.
- - - - -(Chris)
For most
>insect groups, there is little change over time (barring the occasional
>major revision), so the catalogs are useful for years if not decades, but
>this is not true with butterflies, in which new names appear in dribs and
>drabs - practically every month, it seems. This is a group of insects for
>which an electronic catalog would truly be justified, and a committee of
>professional taxonomists that can oversee it and update it on a day-to-day
>basis, if need be.
- - - - -
Yes, I agree. It should be an inclusive documented thesaurus, not an
exclusive list of "official" names.
- - - - -(Chris)
 It is, of course, a conflict of interests when committee
>members are passing judgment on names they themselves coined, but I'm
>willing to bet this can be resolved.
- - - - -
Hardly, there are not enough trained systematists who are willing to be
called taxonomists and are broadly conversant with butterfly issues to
avoid conflict of interest.
- - - - -(Chris)
 Me, I run a museum, I *NEED* to know
>which taxa are good and which are not, and that's a judgment that only
>taxonomists are qualified to make.
- - - - -
Me too. But one must reference all the taxonomy 'valid' or 'invalid'. The
curator or the committee advising the curator must consider and document
all viewpoints. If there is official editing of the work preserved there is
a risk that innovative new work will be inhibited, and old unpopular work
will be lost. It is the natural history curator's duty to preserve the
documentation of science - both voucher specimens and researcher's working
papers, published and unpublished. 
- - - - - -(Chris)
 I could never justify using a list
>devised by non-taxonomists,
- - - - - -
I agree.
- - - - - -(Chris)
 and such a list would only make my life more
>difficult; when people are donating material to the museum, it's nice if
>the names they use are the ones the museum uses,
- - - - - -
All incoming accessions need to be checked for identification, even when
they come from experts! The museum catalog may have a uniform list of
species, but it must have a cross-reference list of equivalent usages by
different experts in different countries. This is usually prepared from the
literature by personnel who would be better employed preparing the huge
backlog of specimens, or who would be better dispatched to make collections
from doomed habitat.
- - - - - -(Chris)
 and when you're
>responsible for communicating with laypeople, it's nice if the names you're
>using match what they've learned from their field guides.
- - - - - - 
This obligates the use of common names in any outreach programs. There are
too many field guides that fall short or do not use scientific names.
- - - - - -(Chris)
>
>Peace,
>
>
>Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
>Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
>phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>           http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
>  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
>
>